Pretenders - Learning to Crawl

By Billy Altman

The departure of bassist Pete Farndon, and the drug-related death of
lead guitarist James Honeyman Scott in 1982, left Chrissie Hynde's
Pretenders in disarray, but she and drummer Martin Chambers rallied to
produce the stunning 1983 single, "Back on the Chain Gang"
(dedicated to Scott), and over the course of the next year, cobbled
together enough material for a new album, some of whose tracks included
new members: guitarist Robbie McIntosh and bassist Malcolm Foster.
Nontheless, the album held together due to Hynde's uniformly strong
material, which ranged from the rocking, bluesy "Middle of the
Road" to the near-protest tune "My City Was Gone," to the
piercing "Time the Avenger."